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Friday, 4 July 2014

Natural Goth

Happy Birthday Natural Goth!

Today I'm announcing the birth of a new style, Natural Goth! What is Natural Goth? How did it come to be? Well, it may sound silly but I made it up yesterday! It was created out of a need for more colour in my wardrobe. I want less black but I don't want to sacrifice the alternative edge from my style. Thus Natural Goth was born!

What is Natural Goth?

Natural Goth resembles the Gothic style but is characterized by its use of earth tones instead of classic Gothic colours like black or purple. Although the exact definition of Goth is highly varied the most basic concept is that it has a connection to things that are dark or macabre. One might assume that something dark is characteristically black, however, dark things are not necessarily black or literally dark, for example blood is red and bats are brown. There are many colours that can be employed into the Gothic wardrobe and today I'm going to show you how you can dress as a Natural Goth.

How to get started...

As I mentioned above, Natural Goth uses earth tones. Earth tones are muted colours that come from the warm side of the colour wheel. If you want to be inspired, here are some colours you can look for.

Brown

Copper

Linen

Burgandy

Beige

Olive

Ochre

Emerald

Gray

Charcoal

For today, I'm using mood boards that feature primarily shades of brown and gold. In the future I plan to expand on the different colours you can use. There are some benefits and drawbacks to dressing as a Natural Goth. The biggest drawback is that there aren't many Goth products available in colour, so you have to get creative. This is what excites me about this style! I wanted something new and challenging. The benefit that this style offers is a greater range of colour to choose from; whereas traditional Goth is mostly black, Natural has a wider selection of colours to work with! It's also easier to mix and match colours through Natural. If you've had mismatched black garments in the past you know how frustrating it can be. Shades of black come from all over the colour wheel. You can have clothes that are black with a red based dye and black with a blue based dye, if you hold them up against each other the difference is very noticeable. In Natural Goth you can combine different shades of brown and it won't look as noticeable because they come from the same part of the colour wheel.

You might wonder what the difference is between this style and Steampunk. Most of the brown garments you will find in alternative shops are Steampunk, but Steampunk doesn't have a copyright on brown or beige. Steampunk is characterized by its use of mechanical subject matter (like cogs) and Victorian design elements. Natural Goth can literally be any kind of Goth clothing just in natural colours. It's wide open for interpretation!

Accessories

When accessorizing a Natural Goth outfit try using a variety of textures and colour. Using items with texture like pleather or suede can really set an outfit off. The use of gold, antique gold or copper jewelry also looks very striking and compliments the colours used in Natural. Also consider jewelry that features gemstones like Tiger's Eye, Citrine, Amber or Garnet.

As shown in the mood boards above, with a little imagination it's easy to apply the Natural Goth colour scheme to most any Goth sub-style!

I'm not expecting this to take off, it's just for fun! But if you give the Natural Goth style a try, show me pictures!! I'd love to see where you take this style.

13 comments:

I adore your blog, and I embrace this! Personally my style is so many different things, I cant lable it :o It's inspired by nature, fantasy and history, and I just characterize it like that. I am going to make a blogpost about it some time, I think, and I definitely have a hint of 'natural goth' in it.

Aw, thank you! : ) I'm glad you enjoy my blog, I love writing it. My style is a mash up of all sorts of things like goth and vintage, and some things just lack definition lol. I look forward to seeing your post! I really like your blog, you have a wonderful way of presenting nature and fantasy through fashion. I think that's why I like this idea of Natural Goth so much, it just has a kind of pagan/fae influence to it.

I love this corset too and I want it really badly lol. It's from TheBurgandyBoudoir.com although I've never purchased anything from there, I'd like to someday. Their stuff looks so pretty!

Such a great idea Ms. Ladyfair! Matching blacks is the bane of my existence :) You're absolutely right, Goth doesn't have to be all black, and why not incorporate something different, especially with the pagan vibe of the pieces you found. Two feathered thumbs up for Natural Goth!

Matching blacks has been the bane of my existence as well. I bought a cardigan a month ago that looked black but when I tried to wear it with other stuff I suddenly realized it was green! It doesn't go with any other black garments in my closet. There should just be a standard black dye for every manufacturer lol.

I'm interested in seeing new colours emerging in the goth scene, what with the whole pastel goth movement I'm hoping to see more change in the future. : )

I'm glad you like it! I hope you give a try, I'd love to see what you come up with. : ) I'm working on my natural goth wardrobe, I picked up a beautiful brown peasant skirt on the weekend! I'm so excited to make more outfits.

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